A network (e.g., a telecommunication network) may have a data plane that includes devices exchanging network traffic, and a control plane that controls how network traffic is routed in the data plane. Operations support systems (OSSs) in the control plane are computer systems used by telecommunication service providers to manage telecommunication networks, such as telephone networks. OSSs and data plane devices (referred to as Network Elements (NEs)) exchange messages to perform management functions, such as network inventory, service provisioning, network configuration and fault management, etc. For example, the messages may be based on Transaction Language 1 (TL1), which is a widely used management protocol in telecommunications. In particular, operations domains (e.g., surveillance, memory administration, and access and testing) define and use TL1 messages to accomplish specific functions between the OSSs and the NEs.
A message (e.g., TL1 message) may include a command (which is simply a directive to a computer program in a receiving device of the message) to perform a specific task. The command that specifies a task to be performed in a network may be referred to as a network command. The message that includes the network command may be referred to as a network command message. Typically, the receiving device executes (or otherwise processes) the command immediately after receiving the message, and also reports the associated response immediately. When the command is sent to a large number of receiving devices, problems may arise due to the timing difference (referred to as a command skew) with respect to when the command is received by any receiving device. For example, when a command is sent to more than ten NEs in a telecommunication network, each NE can receive and execute the command at different points in time. If the network operation requires simultaneous execution of the command at each NE, the command skew produces unreliable results of the command. In addition, the same command may be sent repeatedly to multiple NEs for frequent updating of specific system attributes. The transmission and processing of these responses from multiple NEs to the repeated commands cause system resource contention.